Bigby's Hands (all of them)

[Steve]

Wasn't the idea behind the most recent changes—which wasn't so recent, really...—that if a PC is caught in a Bigby's they have the ability still to attack and possibly eventually kill the Hand?

A Bigby’s hand is 10 feet long and about that wide with its fingers outstretched. It has as many hit points as you do when you’re undamaged, and its AC is 20 (–1 size, +11 natural). It takes damage as a normal creature, but most magical effects that don’t cause damage do not affect it. The hand never provokes attacks of opportunity from opponents. It cannot push through a wall of force or enter an antimagic field, but it suffers the full effect of a prismatic wall or prismatic sphere. The hand makes saving throws as its caster. Disintegrate or a successful dispel magic destroys it.

[Rhifox]

They have rather high DR, which feels pretty silly to me.

The hand can be attacked and killed, it has 200+10*caster HD hit points, 25+caster HD/3 AC, caster HD/3 DR and is immune to critical hits.

[Blackman D]

to make it so its not a i win button but durable enough to stay useful, yea

[Thaelis]

Seeing as it's a Force effect similar to a Wall of Force, you could use the following rules:

A wall of force can be damaged by spells as normal, except for disintegrate, which automatically destroys it. It can be damaged by weapons and supernatural abilities, but a wall of force has hardness 30 and a number of hit points equal to 20 per caster level. Contact with a sphere of annihilation or rod of cancellation instantly destroys a wall of force.

This being the case, it actually has much lower DR than it should have.

Source: Pathfinder SRD
(in 3E it is immune to magic, physical attacks and dispelling, which is even more ridiculous)

to make it so its not a i win button but durable enough to stay useful, yea

Right!

[Steve]

The problem is that mobs cast a Bigby’s that a PC cannot target and thus cannot hit.

[Endelyon]

This change was only for the player version of Bigby, not the monster one, though I've always felt that was a bit of a strange dichotomy.

[Valefort]

It's a technical dichotomy if i remember correctly, the AI not handling the hand creature well. I would have to spend some time to see how things work.

[Steve]

This change was only for the player version of Bigby, not the monster one, though I've always felt that was a bit of a strange dichotomy.

It is strange, and though I can understand there was an idea behind it to, as stated earlier, not give PCs and instant win button, it however DOES give mobs/bosses an instant win.

I’m all for the spell being powerful, but also for it to be inline with the Core Rules description.

Any arguments to keep this dichotomy? Can there be a real consideration to make Bigby’s Hands function the same, and the PC-casting type where one can kill it?

Thank you.

Edit: please, so take a look Val. At least if it is technically impossible to make work right, there could then be options for adjusting it differently. Cheers.

[Blackman D]

yea i vaguely remember issues with the new version and the AI, similar to how the AI cant be given hips, tho i dont remember what the problem was